30. Nyssa

30

NYSSA

MAKE YOU MINE- MADISON BEER

"I'm not afraid of you."

I challenge Professor Adler with a brave glare. He's let go of me, backing up a couple steps to slide fingers through his hair and catch his breath. He's never looked more out of control. More deranged and insane.

He's lost all composure. All restraint.

Every principle he lives his life by has seemingly disappeared.

He's operating off impulse and adrenaline.

The rough breaths he husks out tell me he's right on the edge of truly snapping. I've driven him to the brink.

…and, as shameful as it is to admit, there's something darkly sexy about him like this. There's something strangely empowering in the most fucked up way. I've pushed a man known for his intellect and cool—if not icy—demeanor to such a point that he's transforming into some kind of crazed monster before me.

It's just more confusion at a time where I don't know what to think. I don't know what to believe.

I could be locked inside this glass cell with a man who murdered my mother. The same woman I've been avenging all along, even if initially I wasn't aware who truly was my mother.

Or he could be telling the truth—he didn't murder my mother, but he did love her.

Trying to get a read on the situation feels impossible.

After the web of lies I've found myself tangled in, what's real and what's not has become relative.

Seconds stretch into a full minute as heavy silence hangs between us. Professor Adler works to catch his breath while I search for any clues.

I swallow against imaginary cotton that's materialized in my throat and force myself to remain calm anyway. I'll deal with the trauma of everything I've been through later.

Right now, it's more important I stay sharp and focused. Professor Adler's smart and quick-witted, but so am I.

I just have to come up with an exit plan.

"Professor?" I say cautiously, softening my tone. "What are you?—"

"Silence!" he snaps, then he starts pacing back and forth. "You don't believe a word I've said. You think I took her life? Do you realize what that does to me? No. But you will. You know what to expect by now, Miss Oliver. Punishment's on the menu."

"But what if…" I gulp down some air, taking a step toward him. "What if… maybe I do… maybe I could believe you?"

He stops short, looking over at me, a stray hair curled against his brow. "You believe me?"

"Of course I do," I say gently. "The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. You've been nothing but protective of me. I'm sure you were the same way over my mother."

"I tried to be. But she was hardheaded. It seems she and her daughter have that in common."

He starts toward me, his energy so ambiguous, I'm not sure what to expect. I flinch as he smooths his palm along my cheek and slides his other arm around my hips. "I know you're afraid of me. I even know you don't truly believe me."

"No, I meant it when I?—"

"You really think I don't know when you're lying, Nyssa?" He gives a laugh, his dark eyes gleaming as they peer into mine. "But it's okay. Because I care so deeply for you, I'll get you to see things my way. I'll prove it to you. I have to leave for a couple hours. You'll remain here until I can return."

"Please don't leave me in here?—"

"But first," he goes on, "as some insurance, I can't have you getting loose."

He's slipped something from his pocket that he slaps onto my wrist before I can even object. It's a leather cuff attached to a chain.

"Why don't you get some rest while I'm gone?"

"Professor, don't… Professor!"

He escorts me back toward the bed, where he connects the other end of the chain to one of the iron bars. The chain's so short that I can't even fully stand up from the bed without being pulled back down.

"There. That should be fine." He leans in and kisses me softly on the lips like he's a husband bidding his wife goodbye before leaving for work. "I promise I'll be back soon. And I'll show you the truth. I'll prove to you everything I've said is true. "

"I believe you!" I cry out. I start tugging on the chain to free myself. "Please, Professor… please just… come back! I BELIEVE YOU!"

My voice goes out from the sheer desperation tearing from my throat.

Professor Adler carefully slides the glass wall back into place and then presses a hand to the transparent surface as if he's missing me already. As if this situation and why I'm trapped behind here isn't his own doing.

Dread pits in my stomach watching him go.

The door snaps shut and silence commences around the hidden room. I'm left all alone between thick walls of limestone, stuck inside some kind of glass cage.

"Great…" I mutter under my breath.

Apparently, I'm not as good of an actress as I hoped I was. Professor Adler hadn't bought my ploy for a second. I've managed to fool everyone else in Castlebury, taking on the persona I have and befriending people like Heather Driscoll, but he knows me too well to fall for any pretending.

That's what happens when you open up too much to a person.

I lay down on the bed with no other option at the moment. I have to trust that Theron will keep his word and he'll return sometime soon. What could he possibly retrieve that could make me change my mind?

I'm pondering that thought when I nod off.

Sleep comes suddenly, dragging me into a dreamless void where minutes or even hours go by, and I'm none the wiser.

The snick of the door wakes me. I flinch from where I'm lying on the bed, my right wrist tethered closely to the iron frame .

It takes me a few bleary-eyed blinks to realize the person who's walked through isn't Theron. I blink several more times, sitting up, disoriented and foggy-brained.

My heart stutters inside my ribcage. I'm so thrown by what I'm seeing, I'm vaguely wondering if I'm still dreaming…

Theron's ex, Veronica Fairchild, has shown up. The chocolatey-haired brunette smiles at the sight of me. She's wearing a ruby-red lipstick that clashes horribly with her pale complexion, though something tells me she's put it on for one person only.

"Miss Oliver," she says brightly. "I thought I'd find you here."

I temper my reaction, peering at her with suspicion. "What are you doing?"

"Theron left, didn't he? I figured we could, I don't know, have a little chat. Just us girls." She waltzes over like she's come across me in the park and not a glass cage. Stopping in front of the transparent wall, her smile widens. "I see he's still putting people in here."

"He's… put people in here before?"

"I've known Theron for most of my life. You wouldn't understand." She pulls up a chair from the other side of the room and sits down, crossing her legs in poised, ladylike fashion. "Has he told you about how we got engaged?"

"What does that have to do with me? Are you going to open the door?"

" I proposed," she simpers. "My father didn't appreciate that very much, but what else was I supposed to do? I've been waiting for him for decades . I wasn't going to stand by and let him wallow in some stupid grief over a woman who had been dead for years. I'm a Fairchild, and my biological clock was ticking. "

"You might want to take that up with Theron. He says it's been over."

" Professor to you." A quick glower comes to her face before it passes, and then she lets out another little giggly laugh as if playing off her irritation. "But I suppose that's just it, isn't it? You've been crossing lines for a while now. The both of you have been very, very inappropriate. I should've known he'd leave me for someone like you."

I arch a brow, still tethered to the bed frame as I sit by and watch her bitterness unfold. "Theron didn't leave me for you. You were already broken up."

"We've been on and off for years. Ever since our college days. He always comes back. I always find a way to make him. Then you came along. You were an unplanned inconvenience."

"I'm sure Theron would view that differently too."

"You have no idea how hard I've worked," she says, resting her chin on her fist, her arm propped up on her crossed leg. She peers at me through the glass cage like I'm some repulsive creature at the zoo. "It's taken a lot keeping track of you two. I've had to figure out ways to pull you apart. It hasn't been easy."

The shock that washes over me does so like a wave breaking at a shoreline. I half rise off the bed before the chain reels me back down. But it doesn't even matter, because I'm gaping at Veronica Fairchild as though she's the repulsive creature.

And she is.

"It was you," I say slowly. "You broke into my apartment. You smashed my sculpture. You knocked over my potted plant. You sent me the anonymous text and tipped off the cops that night. "

She wiggles her brows, smirking proudly. "I've done a lot more than that."

"You've been watching me. Following me. Sometimes I've sensed it. I've assumed it was Theron. Even Samson. But it was you ."

"I had to sabotage you whenever possible," she quips. "I also tipped Heather Driscoll off to the two of you in the library. I sent Theodora photographs of you and Theron together. I even sent some to Samson Wicker knowing he would head to your apartment and Theron would confront him, and guess what? I was right."

"And now what? What's the big plan from here? Theron still doesn't want you."

"Oh, but he will. Once you're gone." She rises from the chair and withdraws what looks like a Bowie knife from the pocket of her peacoat. "You see, you'll be dead and gone. I'll be there to comfort him as he grieves. It'll be poetic in a way. History repeating itself..."

Cold sweat rushes me as I shake my head and realize how screwed I am. I'm tethered to the bed while Veronica has a knife and free movement.

How can I even begin to defend myself when she can simply start stabbing away?

"Don't do this. You don't want to ruin your life over this."

She smirks as she approaches the corner of the glass wall where the latch is. "How much clearer can I get, Nyssa? Nothing and no one's going to take Theron from me. Most of all you. If I have to eliminate you myself, then so be it."